---Decision---

---Tcakqaal's perspective---

Just as I push off the railing on Deck 17, my ship cycles from diurnal to nocturnal, the illumination of the starboard gallery dimming significantly and allowing the ghostly light of the galactic core starfield to be visible as it streams down from the windowed ceiling above me.

I glide down to the balcony on the walkway of Deck 5, walk across it and beneath the handpainted Latin sign proclaiming this dorm a 'Little Deathworld'.

I'm pleased not to hear the invasive sounds of Terran music streaming out from the commonroom.

Someone's managed to remember the privacy field, it seems(!)

Well, either that or they've turned in early while I was finishing my administration?

The door slides open for me and I see it's the former as most of the deathworlders and a few of the gardenworlders still aboard are revealed, watching a very peculiar sight with mirthful faces.

Twila has her right hand hinged back against her forearm, revealing a heat gun in her now demanated wrist.

She is directing the jet of warm air into a tunnel she's presumably melted into the bottom of a [50cm] wide and [30cm] tall cylinder of opaque ice that rests on the coffee table.

As my head passes through the soundproof barrier that encloses this room, I hear the voice of a young Terran woman cheerfully singing f♫…ound beneath my feet and rip hearts outta their cores! I wanna get stuck down in the deepest shit where the guts get raw and sore! I wanna be melee infantry when they send me off to WA-AR!

Oh how I wanna big ol' hammer and be fightin' till the break of day! Let me run with the old boys like we're chargin' with the Light Brigade! I wanna feel the heat of dead men's breath and match the glory with a ro-o-oar! I wanna be melee infantry in the Orbital Corps!♫f to bassy, percussive music over the room's speakers.

The smell of ethanol hangs thick on the air from the quantity of exposed Terran drinks.

A building roar of mostly Terran voices rises as Twila finishes excavating her tunnel and swings her hand back into its proper position before reaching for a short wooden pole.

She inserts it into the hole and pokes it through to the other side.

A deafening cheer goes up and drowns out the music as, emerging from the far side of the ice, comes a [10cm] metal cube with the Terran 'C' glyph debossed into each of its faces.

My shipboard manager extends the actuated fingers of her elegant robotic hand to the block, picks it up and brings it to the top of the ice where I now notice just the top face of an identical metal block protruding from the surface, only with an 'A' instead of a 'C' on it's face, placing it down exactly above it.

I'm able to use the height of the ice cylinder and my familiarity with the most common Terran script's alphabet to infer the existence of an obscured 'B' block.

The unnervingly raucous impacting of deathworld bodies as the crowd laughs and Twila sits down smugly next to her biological mother makes me glad I opted against bringing my daughter here tonight. Too high a risk of accident with this level of deathworld inebriation(!)

Jennie has a mixture of chagrin and amusement on her freckled face as Twila smugly folds her arms and the others goodnaturedly mock her (though, for what, I'm unable to discern).

I spot my Clansister over by the side of the room, sitting on what is usually my perch.

She looks… a touch uncomfortable but, regardless, I'm pleased she's come and I'm pleased she's been allowed into this space by its occupants.

One notable thing is how close she has allowed Fluffy to lie to the base of her perch.

I stride over to her.

"Good evening, Waqa'arc." I greet, pleasantly.

"Oh, good evening Sister." she answers, distractedly.

Fluffy chuffs in reproach and I chitter "Sorry Fluffy! I didn't mean to leave you out." extending my bionic talons (which she prefers to my natural ones) to scritch her front right shoulder.

Mollified, she begins emitting deep purrs and rolls against the wall, lifting her right legs to expose her underside to me.

Taking the cue, I transfer my scritching to the dark blue and black striped fur at her sternum.

"So… what exactly happened to cause there to be a [40L] block of ice fused to the top of my ship's furnishing over there, Sister?" I ask, mirthfully, as I give some much craved attention to my CSS's companion animal.

Waqa'arc frowns, looking over at the crowd we're separated from.

"A little while ago, Ms MacLeod was talking about early Terran VIs, called 'AI's at the time but not capable of true sentience, just effective predictors of how Human's generally structured sentences and only capable of getting things right if they had been trained on correct information (which had usually been stolen by the very wealthy individuals who were apparently funding their development, primarily because they thought it would allow them to dispense with the wages they were obliged to pay their Human workforce.) She then told us of the many questions you could ask these VIs which they would be incapable of answering, including this one…" she raises an alula to point to the block of ice "…There are three cubes on a table, Block [A] rests on top of Block [B] which rests on top of Block [C]; how do you get the bottom block on top of the top block without touching or moving the top or middle blocks… Apparently, this sounded enough like a Terran 'brain teaser' to fool all of these VIs into thinking that there must be an answer and so none of them realised the problem they were being asked to solve was entirely insoluble. At that point… Ms Twila volunteered that she thought there was a way to do it, just that it would only work if the blocks were made of a substance with a density significantly greater than [1g/1cm3]… You can guess the rest, I'm sure(!)" still frowning over with a look of mild perplexity adorning her face.

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"Well…" I smile, hopping up onto Fluffy's side for a better scritching angle while looking over at the crowd "…my guess would be that a hearty debate ensued and crescendoed in a challenge being issued which Twila just won and Jennie just lost?"

"Plucked the okla midfall." she confirms "As I would expect, Sister."

At this point, I see Victor noticing my presence, his emerald green eyes fixing on me from across the room for a brief moment before he excuses himself and begins making his way over to where I stand.

As he approaches, his forward facing eyes briefly flick to my Clansister as he politely acknowledges "Ofc Waqa'arc." with a nod.

"CSS Taylor." she acknowledges in return with a slightly too formal dip of her head.

Without further ado, my daughter's [godfather] returns his attention to me and says "Hey Cap, glad you made it. Can I have a quick word with you in my room please?" his tone serious but not urgent.

"Of course, Victor. Please lead on." I agree, extending a wing to the commonroom door.

He turns and walks away, myself following after.

At the point I'm just about to pass through the privacy field, I jump out of my feathers due to Fluffy appearing on my right.

Intentionally or unintentionally, she managed to approach me in the very narrow blindspot directly behind my head and, because every aspect of her physiology is perfectly optimised for stealth, I didn't hear her following.

The music falls immediately silent as I pass back into the hallway.

Fluffy overtakes me and falls in at her master's right side.

Without turning his head, Victor extends a hand to the top of hers, between her ears.

He turns into the room he used to primarily occupy but now serves mainly as Fluffy's room, gunlocker and cuddle puddle venue.

He breaks from Fluffy's side to fetch a heavy perch it would take multiple R'qali to lift.

Onehandedly, he picks it up and walks across the room to place it beside where Fluffy has lain down in front of his weapons locker.

I walk to it and hop up onto it, facing where I know he'll be sitting.

Victor comes down on the floor between his pet's front and middle legs, leaning against her torso and using her as a seatback.

I have a brief flash of him, sat on the floor with his pet hypercarnivore and in front of a rack of weapons, as a successful warlord from Ancient Earth.

It would be amusing enough to laugh at… except that I know what he will have asked me here to talk about…

Taking Fluffy's stubby front leg in his hands and running his fingers through her fur, he starts "Cap, I-" but I cut him off.

"Victor, I wish to speak first…" I state, firmly.

His copper eyebrows tilt upward in the middle to convey mild surprise but he raises a hand to gesture me to go ahead.

I take a deep breath and begin "Victor, I know that you have been grappling with the question of whether to retire from this line of work since the incident on Prosperity. I know that everything that that woman did to you was extremely traumatic, that, being a man of such agency, having your control and ownership of yourself stripped away must have been a nightmare! I know this… but I also do not wish to part with you, Victor… So, I have devised a compromise…"

The man cocks an eyebrow and asks "A… compromise?"

"Yes." I say, my hearts beating at [1000rpm] "Victor, what would you say to a position on the Bridge?"

"The… Bridge?" he frowns in confusion "Doin' what?"

"I'm sure there will be many tasks I can find for you to take care of, Victor…" a slight twinge of desperation creeping into my voice "…deathworld analysis, for instance? Or remote mission overseeing? If you want to be more useful I'd be happy to provide training in any task that took your fancy that you weren't already qualified for…"

"Cap, I-"

"…Of course, if that offer isn't to your liking I could grant you an extended sabbatical and allow you to rent this room at a cost of one credit per 50 diurnals, just to make the whole arrangement legal and official? You could take some time notworking to consider things andthinkaboutwhetheryou want to continue in this roleand,ofcourse,ifyoudoyou'dbewelcomebackanytimeandifnotI'dhappily-"

Victor throws up his palm, firmly stopping me.

My chest rises and falls rapidly with shallow, panted breaths.

"Breathe, Cap… Slow and deep!" he instructs, firmly.

I waggle my beak in a breathless Terran nod and consciously moderate my breathing.

When he's satisfied that I've sufficiently calmed down, Victor says "Cap, I really appreciate it… and I'm really touched… I'm sorry you've been stressin' out about this, I didn't realise… Your ideas were good… well, not 'good' exactly… but they were definitely thoughtful… I actually wanted to tell you I've made my decision…"

Oh, Titan!… There was never any hope of enticing him to stay, was there?

"…I'm stayin', Cap…"

It takes me several long moments to break from my stupor to ask "I'm… sorry?"

"I'm stayin'." he repeats, simply.

I stare down at him, blankly, while numerous questions swirl in my mind. None make it to my beak.

"It was the break." he explains "Bein' on Citadel with nothin' much to do while we was waitin' for Parliament to decide if Khr'kowan and Viig got to stay there or we had to take 'em home? It made not even three months feel like more than six(!)… I realised, that's what my life'd be if I wasn't workin'… I also realised whoever you got to replace me (not to sound arrogant but) probably wouldn't be anywhere near as good(!) That'd put them at risk, the ship at risk and all my friends still aboard it at risk. I also also realised that I'd be draggin' Tuun away from a career she worked hard for and that didn't sit right. Then, course, I realised I'd not get to see everyone aboard without specific'ly arrangin' a holochat… Your compromises'd've fixed some o' those issues but not all of 'em… Anyway, I talked it over with Ally and (separate) with Tuun and I decided to stay… After our honeymoon, I'd like to request a full renewal of my employment contract and return to duty and my position if that's alright?"

Unable to believe how well this went, my beak flaps open and closed a few times before I manage "That's fine, Victor… More than fine! I'll gladly renew your employment!"

I hop down from my perch and make for the door.

"I'll draw it up right now and I'll…"

The man is between me and the door before I reach it, wryly looking down at me.

"No you won't…" he chides "…You're mental if you think I'm lettin' you go back to work this late(!) You're comin' back to the party and that ain't up for discussion(!)"

---later---

I stumble across my quarter's threshold, inebriated on dilute Terran wine, and see my daughter excitedly waddling towards me on her adorably oversized legs.

"Kicakicakica!" she screeches.

"Well now(!) What are you doing awake, little one(?)" I chitter as I extend my natural talons to catch her front and raise her to mine.

I wrap my wings around her and tap my beak against hers. She responds with heartsmelting overenthusiasm, whacking the side of her beak into mine as hard as she's able (only stopped from being painful by her diminutive size(!))

My lifemate appears (looking exhausted) and says "I'm sorry Tcakqaal, she just won't go up!" gesturing to the baby perch we moved her to once she outgrew the incubator.

"No matter, sweetfruit… We can let her tire herself out for a little and then offer her the perch again… Can't we Tcakak!" I say, playfully nipping her with my beak while she squeaks in delight.

Once I've stopped, she looks up at me and demands "Anka Viikta… Play! Walk Anka Viikta!"

"[Uncle] Victor's sleeping right now, little one… But you can play with him tomorrow… and the next day… and the next day…"

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